Archive for the ‘1000 Food, Sourcing and Supplies’

With the first batches arriving in 1980, the Sierra Nevada Brewery takes its brewing quite seriously, but has a major commitment to sustainable practices as well. What sort of sustainable practices? It’s a laundry list… here are some highlights:

Some restaurant sustainability metrics are assembled by Cork and Knife

The average American meal has a shockingly large carbon footprint, usually traveling 1, 500 miles to the plate and emitting large amounts of CO2 in the process, according to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Each meal created produces 275 pounds of waste a day, making restaurants the worst aggressors of greenhouse gas emissions in retail industry, says the Boston-based Green Restaurant Association [GRA], a non-profit organization that works to create an ecologically sustainable restaurant industry.

A recent NRA [National Restaurant Association] study shows utility costs are a big line item for restaurateurs, accounting for a median of between 2.3 percent and 3.6 percent of sales, depending on the type of operation.

According to Zagat’s 2007 America’s Top Restaurants, 65 percent of surveyors said they would pay more for food that has been sustainably raised or procured. According to 2007 National Restaurant Association research, 62 percent of adults said they would likely choose a restaurant based on its environmental friendliness.

Opened in 1979, and still one of the most committed examples of organic, seasonal and local restaurant kitchens, we at Restaurant Reformer direct your attention to Nora. In 1999, Nora was the first restaurant in the country certified organic. Chef Nora Pouillon also takes the education of her guests seriously, putting information on the origins and issues around her food right on the menu. She makes no bones about the fact that quality ingredients aren’t cheap.

Following Nora, Asia Nora opened in 1996, bringing Chef Pouillon’s vision to asian-influenced flavors. Asia Nora closed in December of 2007.

Chef Pouillon was honored by the Organic Trade Association in 2004, and she is a founding member of the Seafood Choices Alliance. She’s been named 1997 Chef of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. You can often find her speaking at various engagements around the country (and the world?).

Owned by Bill Foss and around since 2004, a new kitchen crew came to Fish in November 2005, led by Whitney Gaunte. The hook (ahem) is sustainable, fresh, local fish. A fixed menu is supplemented by specials. Nearly universally recognized as expensive, and they don’t take plastic, Fish is about fish – and there’s a fish market there too.

Widely reported around the net a couple weeks ago, somesources indicate that development has begun on a $200 million vertical farm facility in the desert of Nevada. Or maybe not. The city and county apparently don’t know anything about it. The design apparently originates with one Chris Jacobs – but it’s just that, a design. So, the whole story may be bogus, but it raises some interesting questions. If we can’t trust the headline, we probably can’t trust the numbers (and there are only a few available), but for the sake of exercise…

As reported, the 30-story facility is large enough to feed 72,000 people. That’s about 13% of the population of Las Vegas – 8 of these (for $1.6 billion) is enough to feed the city (feeding the tourists is another problem). It would take about 4200 of these to feed the country (303,300,000 / 72,000). They’re anticipating $25 million from produce and $15 million from tourists. Presumably the tourist revenue will drop off as these things spring up like weeds. Ignoring tourists and pesky things like inflation, and with a stated annual operating cost of $6 million, the farm complex would break even in about 10.5 years ($200M / $19M net/year).

For those counting food-miles as a measure of sustainability, building a farm near the city could be a very good thing. As a contained environment, things like pests are excluded physically and seasons are irrelevant. There’s a lot to be said for farming in a building, but what’s the real story?

For that, the Restaurant Reformer follows the breadcrumbs to Dr. Dickson Despommier’s vertical farm site, where we find an economic analysis that appears to have a bit more research behind it (thanks to Jackie Baumgartner, Locky Chambers, Alexis Harman, Jun Mitsumoto and Jordana Rothschild). This material is the basis for some more-respectable stories on the subject, including New York Magazine, CNN, Wired, and the BBC.

Despommier’s numbers are a bit different – a 21-story building that costs $84 million to build, $13.5 million/year in pre-tax revenue from lettuce. That gets into the black a lot faster than the Vegas theory (84 / 13.5 = 6.25 years).

They’ve done all the heavy lifting over at Despommier’s vertical farm site, so we’ll leave the expertise to the experts. The story got picked up and carried around the net, so that suggests there’s some interest in the idea – even if it’s not happening in Vegas today.

Far out on the edge of sustainability in food service, we find a place in Denver, Colorado. Featuring a living wall, greywater recycling, two wind turbines, no air conditioning, 99% organic, 80% local food sourcing, Marilyn Megenity at the Mercury Café is pushing hard on the sustainability front, with a specific goal of being completely off-grid.

Located in the Burlington Marriott, chefs Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier present New England cuisine at Summer Winter (opened in 2007). With food sourced locally, and grown in their own greenhouse, they eschew large food suppliers.

Food service doesn’t happen without agriculture, so it’s probably worth investigating the links in the food chain to see if there’s something useful. Fortunately, the US Federal Government appropriated funds to let the National Center for Appropriate Technology continue to operate the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service.